Trials (The Forever Series, Book 6) (3 page)

“Sounds about right,” he mutters and squeezes my hand as I
concentrate like I never have before on getting us back to where we are
supposed to be.

I feel the movement of the jet underneath my feet as I open
my eyes and steady myself. CK opens his eyes too and we look at each other and
then step back from the numerous shouts. “Where the fuck did you go?” Devon yells
at me.

“Devon, what are you to me?” I ask him, this time nice and
calm, not letting go of CK’s hand. If he says “your husband” I am getting the
hell out immediately.

“What? What do you mean?”

“What are you to me?” I repeat.

“Err, charge, lover, best friend, business partner…”

I relax a bit and focus on Cole, “And you?”

Stepping forward, even though CK is holding me back, Cole
says, “Charge, lover, ex-husband…” he trails off with a weird look. My
shoulders sag. Nooooooo, I wail in my head. Ex-husband? For fuck’s sake.

“What year is this?” I ask, much to everyone’s astonishment,
taking in the unusual outfits and the fact that this isn’t the G6 at all. “What
year?” I shriek and Cole says, “2113.”

Chapter 2

CK and I look at each other and he is smug. “Are we married
then?” he asks Sebastian who is standing in the corner with Jess draped over
him like ivy.

“What, you two? Yes. How could you possibly forget? It was
the event of the century.”

Aw crap, I think, as CK relaxes and says to me in hushed
tones, “I don’t mind losing the last hundred years. Everything is now as it
should be.”

“Erm, no, CK,” I whisper back. “We are not staying here.
This isn’t right. We have to get back to our time. Who knows what will happen
if we just stay here.”

“Oh, we are staying, Aefre,” he says, pulling his hand out
of mine and stepping back. “I am not going anywhere.”

“Fine. Then you stay here and I will go back and find my
rightful place,” I hiss at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs, now fully confident of his
actions again. “You can’t go anywhere without me, and I am not going.”

I grab his hand and he takes mine and crushes it, breaking
my bones in the process. I wince and they heal straight away but I am shocked,
appalled that he hurt me like that on purpose. “We aren’t going anywhere,” he
says again, ignoring the bristling going on that he hurt me.

“How do you plan on stopping me?” I say now in a right
temper with him. But he knows. He knows exactly how to stop me and executes a
very thorough Vampire move, which has my husband--ex-husband--Cole on his back
in a vice-like grip, hand at his throat. “You have just witnessed what I can
do, Aefre. Make no mistake that time has dulled that capability. We leave, he
dies. In the next place and the next place. I will keep killing him.”

“What the fuck?” Cole says, exasperated beyond belief. “I
thought this was over? You won. You got her. I gave up and let you have her and
now I still get shit over it?”

CK eyes flick to his. “You gave up?” he asks, loosening his
grip. “You gave up? You mean to say that you didn’t want to leave her?”

“No, of course not. What is with you two? Where did you go?
Wherever it was, you both need a serious looking-at.”

I rush to Cole’s side and place my hand on his chest. “CK,
please let him go. I’ll stay,” I whisper desperately to him.

“Good,” he says and lets him go. Cole places his hand on
mine and stills. He fingers the rings there, the rings he gave me. The perfect
black diamonds. He looks at me curiously and with hope until CK grabs my hand
and pulls them off and pockets them. I clench my hand in a fist, the only ring
left on my hand is my Faerie Silver ring and it feels wrong. CK hauls me up to
my feet and whispers, “You know what to do.” I blink at him and remove the ring
from my right hand and place it on my left. “Good girl,” he murmurs and kisses
me. I don’t kiss him back as I am so mad with him I could kill him. I pull away
and rush to the back of the, well, whatever this is we are travelling on,
pleased to find a bedroom section. I close the door quietly and the tears fall
silently down my face. This is wrong. So wrong. It isn’t how it was supposed to
be. We aren’t supposed to just be here like this. We are supposed to live to
get here. I have lost Cole. There is no way I can get us out of here as I have no
doubt that CK will make good on his threat if I take away his dream.

“Livvie,” Sebastian says, coming into the room. “Are you
okay?”

“No.” I brush the tears away with my hand.

“Where did you two go?” he asks, concerned.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly it does. Speak to me, my love. Tell me why you are
so upset.”

“Are you with Jess?” I ask instead.

He looks taken aback. “Of course. We are married. But you
know it is you I love.”

“What?” I say, weary. “You love me?”

“We are in love. You and I,” he says and kisses me tenderly.

“No, Seb. We aren’t. And don’t do that. He will have an even
bigger shit-fit if he comes in here and we are kissing.”

“No, he won’t. He knows about us,” Sebastian says,
perplexed. “He knows how we feel about each other. He lets us be together
because you know my secret and take care of me.”

Now that is just weird. We were just talking about this in
the past.

“What about Jess? Doesn’t she take care of you?”

He looks at me quizzically, “No, Livvie. You know I spell
her not to bite me.”

“What? How…how does she accept that?”

“She has no choice, besides, she gets the affection from her
sire. She doesn’t need it from me.”

Wow, cold. I don’t know what I would feel if I couldn’t bite
my husband. Whoever that might be--seems it could be any number of people at
this rate. “Her sire?” I have to ask after last time.

“Devon,” he says, confused. “Livvie, are you sure you are
okay?”

Phew, I breathe out. At least that is right. He kisses me
again and this time my evil side flares up and I let him. This CK knows about
us and lets us be together? Well my CK is about to get a shock when he comes
looking for me, and he will.

“Oh, Liv,” Sebastian breathes. “I want you.” He stands with
me in his arms and kisses me passionately.

“Take me,” I whisper with a seductive smile and he doesn’t
need asking twice, pausing only momentarily to frown at my outfit which he has
only just noticed. Pushing his hands up my thighs he lightly touches me and I
shiver. I don’t know if it is a sibling thing or a Faerie thing but his touch
is incredible. The slightest graze of his fingertips sets me on fire. “Oh yes,”
he murmurs. “So wet for me.”

I feel the tingle go up the back of my neck and grin
wickedly as CK storms into the room to find me wrapped around Sebastian with
his hands up my dress.

“Get your hands off her,” he snaps. “Aefre. What do you
think you are doing?” He drags me away from his first charge quite roughly and
I see he is pissed.

“Nothing wrong, my love,” I say. “You let us be together,
remember?” I “remind” him with a sweet smile and his eyes laser into mine like
two black death rays.

“Oh, do I?” he hisses. “’Bastian, please leave us.”

“Well that just isn’t fair,” he says. “You can’t just leave
me all riled up like that.”

“Go!” he roars and with a face like thunder he takes his
leave of us.

He glares at me, waiting for me to explain, and I just
shrug. “Sebastian said you let us be together because I know his secret and
take care of him.”

“And you just believe him?”

“Why would he lie? He doesn’t know we are from a different
timeline. Although, we are acting very suspiciously, someone is going to put
two and two together soon,” I muse out loud. “And by the way, where the hell
are the Aefre and Constantine from this timeline?”

“Good question, but I don’t really care. You are now my wife
and you will start behaving like it.”

“Oh, is that the way it is now? I don’t think so, my love.
You may be blackmailing me into staying here but I won’t bow down to your
unfair demands.”

“Blackmailing you?” he says and blanches. “Oh, Aefre, no.
Don’t think of it that way. Don’t you see? We are together, finally, after all
this time. Isn’t that what you wanted? To be my wife?”

“Yes, Constantine. It is what I have always wanted, but...”

He beams. “Then let’s stay and be together,” he interrupts me.

“But not like this,” I continue, ignoring him. “I don’t want
to be thrust into this. I want to have lived it, remembered it. Actually been
at our wedding. Doesn’t any of that make a difference to you?”

He sighs. “I would like that too, but we are here now,” he
insists.

“And the other ‘us’ are where? Wondering around the
space-time continuum with no clue what is going on?”

*****

The G6, Pearson International Airport, Toronto, 2013 – Future
Aefre and Constantine

“Where the fuck did you go?” Devon yells at them as they
land in a heap on the floor of the aircraft. She stands and looks around,
brushing off her smart black all-in-one-suit. “And what the fuck are you
wearing?” he adds.

She looks at him and then at Constantine who looks just as
bewildered as she does. She glances at everyone flying on what she thinks is her
old G6? Curious.

“Hello? Liv? Are you going to answer me?” Devon snaps at her,
waving his hand in front of her face.

“Liv,” Cole says, going to her and sweeping her off her feet.
“I was so worried.” He plants a kiss on her lips and she stands stock-still.
“Liv?” he asks. She puts her hand up to his chest to push him off her before CK
rips his head off. Cole grabs her left hand and looks down, his face going
cold. “What is this?” He holds her hand up to show off the blue diamond ring
and her Faerie Silver wedding ring. “What is the meaning of this?” he yells at her,
looking so hurt she wants to reach out and comfort him.

“Get your hands off my wife,” CK growls at him, taking a
menacing step closer. “She is mine now and you will keep your hands to
yourself.”

“What?” everyone shouts and starts talking all at once.

They blink at each other and take a step back. CK takes her
hand and she whispers to him, “What the fuck?”

“I don’t know. What did you do?”

“Me?” she squeaks. “Why do you automatically blame me?”

“I may have more power than before, but I don’t wield
this
kind of power, my sweet. Clearly this is some kind of doing on your part.”

“But what? Have we gone back in time? It looks to me like we
have gone back in time,” she mutters to herself.

“What year is this?” CK barks out suddenly and everyone
shuts up.

“Come again?” Devon says.

“The year? What is it?” he says through gritted teeth.

“2013,” he says, baffled as to why we are asking.

“And where are we?”

“About to land in Toronto,” he says before the jet lands
swiftly and they are once again thrown to the floor. A cautionary tale to be
seated and buckled up and not standing around yelling at each other.

“Fuck,” she says, rubbing her hip where she landed on it. CK
helps her to her feet.

“I would say, yes, my love. We have gone back in time.
Question is: why? And where is the ‘us’ that are supposed to be here?”

“In the future, where ‘we’ are supposed to be? Shit. They
are going to have no idea what is going on. At least we already lived this,” she
says.

“We are both exceptionally clever. I am sure we will catch
on quickly,” CK says arrogantly. “But I do not want to stay here and live out
the next hundred years again. No fucking way. You have to get us back where we
belong.”

Everyone is staring at them like they just came here from
the future--which they did.

“Oh Christ!” CK snaps suddenly as he looks at her. “Past
‘me’ isn’t going to want to come back. He is going to want to stay exactly
where he is…with you…
his wife
.”

“Erm, for those of us who are finding this hard to follow.
Can you please explain?” Devon ventures.

“We are from a hundred years in the future,” CK says mildly.
“Seems your Aefre has switched us about somehow.”

“Why is it our Aefre, err Liv, that switched you about?” he
says, affronted. “How do you know it wasn’t yours?”

They share a glance, and he clears his throat. “She wouldn’t
have brought us back to this time,” is all he says.

“What do you mean?” comes the suspicious reply from Lincoln,
“This time?”

“They can’t say,” Sebastian pipes up. “Anything they do or
say can dramatically change the future.”

“What are you, some kind of time-travelling expert?” Cole
snaps at him.

“Have you never seen
Back to the Future
?” he
responds. “And you call yourself an actor.”

“This is ridiculous,” Lincoln says. “Time travel is not
possible. You two have gone off somewhere when you Astralled out of here and
hit your heads or something.”

“No, Linc. We are who we say we are. We are from 2113,” she
says to him, shaking her head.

“So you are married now?” Cole says quietly. “How long for?”

“We can’t tell you that,” she says to him, feeling his pain.
She pulls her hand out of CK’s and goes to him. He lets her, only because he is
smug.

She pulls Cole close to her and hugs him tightly. “We are
still in love,” she whispers to him. “We just aren’t married anymore,” she adds.
He hugs her back fiercely.

“No, I don’t want to believe this. I don’t want to believe
that you left me,” he says sadly.

“I didn’t leave you. You left me,” she says and then claps her
hand to her mouth as CK rumbles behind her in warning. “Aefre.”

“No,” Cole says. “I wouldn’t. I won’t,” he says determinedly
with a look at CK.

“Aefre, you need to get us out of here, right now,” CK says.
“Before any more damage can be done.”

“I’ll try,” she says, stepping back.